‘I had a crazy idea,’ he is saying. ‘It’s such a fantastic morning I wondered whether we might have a walk. There’s a path right through the woods beside the stream just over the bridge there. I think you’d love it. And then, perhaps, we could go to the pub in the village for lunch – if you don’t have to dash off, that is.’
She looks at him, and then glances quickly away again.
‘Yes, I think I could,’ she murmurs. ‘Yes, why not?’ And then she looks at him properly and they smile at each other.
Later, Rupert phones Kitty. It’s not that he’s feeling guilty about Dossie, no, it’s simply that he wants to connect, check that Kitty’s OK. She answers after a few rings and her voice is unusually animated though a bit fuzzy. She’s with Sally in her car, she tells him, whizzing back from Cribbs Causeway having had lunch and a retail therapy session at John Lewis. He can hear Sally saying something in the background and then Kitty reminds him that they’re all going to the Ashton Court Club this weekend and that Sally says to tell him that she’s looking forward to doing a tango with him, and then there’s lots of girly laughing. He goes along with it all, making an outrageous remark about one of Sally’s particularly daring outfits and there are more shrieks, and then he says that they’re breaking up and shouts goodbye.
He puts his mobile in his pocket, breathes deeply. So that’s good, then. It’ll be a great weekend, he’ll make certain of that, falling in with plans for shopping, a rubber of bridge, dinner at the Club: but still the prospect of this kind of future appals him. He cannot see himself as a retired husband: pushing the trolley around Sainsbury’s whilst Kitty darts up and down the aisles, visiting the garden centre, ‘doing’ Badminton or making cosy foursomes with Sally and dull old Bill. He shrinks in horror from it. He’d like to have Kitty back with him, working together and having fun in their own way. Of course he could see that she had to go back to look after Mummy when Kitty’s father died so suddenly – he’d absolutely encouraged it – but he hadn’t anticipated that Kitty would have been so quickly reabsorbed into the social scene she’d once so cheerfully abandoned.
He goes into the cottage, thinking now about Dossie, and begins to whistle under his breath as he clears up the remains of their picnic.
Stripey Bunny has been very rude and silly, and he is sitting on the naughty step. The naughty step is the first at the bottom of the stairs and Jakey himself had been sitting on that step just a bit earlier. Now he sits at the kitchen table, running a little car to and fro, and wonders how Stripey Bunny is feeling. It isn’t really fair to blame Stripey Bunny for not eating his tea properly because he hasn’t got a very good mouth for eating things, but it made Jakey feel better to tell him off and plonk him down on the step. Earlier, Daddy did that very same thing to him because he was rude to Sister Ruth. It is unfair because everyone – the Sisters, Janna, Daddy, even Dossie – is behaving oddly and Jakey can’t understand why. It is as if they aren’t really noticing him or hearing him any more, and deep down it frightens him. They look worried and they frown, all except Dossie who is very happy and does funny things that make him laugh, but still worry him a bit too, in a different way.
And when Daddy met him off the bus he still had that same not-seeing look and said, ‘Come on, Jakes, get a move on,’ not smiling or asking him about school or anything and then Sister Ruth came through the gate, back from a walk, and said: ‘Good afternoon, young man. So what have you learned today at school?’ and he said, ‘Nothing,’ and turned his back, and Daddy grabbed him by the arm and made him apologize for being rude and then hurried him into the Lodge and plonked him on the step.
It wasn’t long before Daddy came back and said that he could have his tea now and he said he didn’t want any, and then he saw that it was his favourite Smarties cake and he thought he might like some after all but didn’t want to give in because he still didn’t think it was fair. But Daddy crouched down and gave him a kiss and said, ‘All over now, Jakey. Come on. Let’s have some of this nice cake,’ as if he was sorry really, and so he climbed up on his chair and watched while Daddy cut the cake.
And then, just when he thought things were going to be all right again and Daddy was talking to him properly, his mobile rang and Daddy picked it up and went out of the room. So he finished his cake all on his own, feeling cross and disappointed, and that’s when Stripey Bunny had been silly and he’d taken him out and put him on the naughty step.
Jakey drives the toy car to and fro, feeling muddled and upset. Then the door opens and Daddy comes in carrying Stripey Bunny and saying, ‘Hey. Look who I found on the naughty step. He says he’s sorry and may he come back now?’ and he dances Stripey Bunny up and down on the table so that Jakey laughs and grabs him, and Daddy says, ‘That’s better. Listen. Why don’t we walk down to the beach and look for stones for Janna?’ This is a big treat in the week, because of being tired and having to get to bed on time because of school next day, and suddenly he’s really happy again and he jumps up and down and shouts, and Daddy smiles at him so that he feels that some heavy thing has rolled away from his heart and everything is all right.
Janna puts her mobile down on the caravan step beside her and leans back against the doorway. Poor Clem; he sounded so remorseful.
‘I feel such a pig,’ he said gloomily. ‘Mind you, he was rude to Sister Ruth, but I think he’s picking up my anxiety. Poor little chap.’
‘Well, you made your point,’ she answered. ‘Now give him a real treat. Take him down to the beach and ask him to find me some more stones to put on the windowsill. He loves that. Oh, never mind bedtime and all that stuff just for once, Clem. It’s such amazing weather and it’ll be pouring next week. Be happy with him. I’ll come down and see you later after supper.’
They are all feeling the strain. Even Sister Emily looks preoccupied. Janna pulls her skirt up around her knees and closes her eyes. Sister Nichola’s remark about silence made her think about it and she’s begun to realize that there are different kinds of silence. Sometimes she slips into the chapel and sits just inside the door. They offered her a place of her own, just behind Sister Emily, but she felt that this was too much; that she didn’t quite merit her own place. Anyway, she likes the freedom of perching near the door: last in, first out. There is a silence in the empty chapel; not a scary, empty silence but the silence of a deep-down peacefulness that slows her breathing and calms her. If any of the Sisters are at Silent Prayer then the quality of the silence is a different one, though the other is held within it. This more human silence contains a sense of expectation; of waiting.
Now, sitting on the step in the sunshine, with the pretty banties pecking around her feet, she is aware of the rural silence: a silence that contains the drone of a bee, birdsong and, more distantly, the sea’s unceasing whisper. Clem asked her to go with them to the beach – and she longed to go – but it would soon be time for Vespers and then supper. When she is with Clem and Jakey it is like having a family, but without any of the responsibilities. When Jakey sits on her lap and leans against her, and she rests her cheek against his small head, she feels a great longing: a deep, deep desire for a child of her own. Yet the prospect frightens her. She sees the relentless commitment that Clem makes to Jakey and she wonders if she’ll ever have the courage to give herself totally to a relationship or to a child. Oh, but she loves Jakey. He has, by sheer force of character, finally carried away her Little Miss Sunshine book. He loves the story of the grumpy king who can’t smile and lives in Miseryland and Little Miss Sunshine who teaches him how to laugh.
Sitting there, eyes closed, she remembers her mother saying to her: ‘You’re my Little Miss Sunshine. You can always make me laugh however bad things are.’
‘I need the book,’ Jakey would say, leaning against her knee, looking at her winningly. ‘Then Daddy could read it to me at bedtime. I really do need it, Janna.’
‘But isn’t it nice to have it here as a treat, my lover?’ she’d counter. ‘Makes it sort of special.
’
‘But I could bring it when I come to see you,’ he’d answer. ‘Then I could have both.’
‘But would it be so much of a treat?’
‘It would be even more a treat. Twice-times a treat.’
Eventually she’d given way and he carried off the book triumphantly, though he still brings it back sometimes so that she can read it to him. Yet in the giving there has been real pleasure, as if she’s passed on something precious, which now links her with Jakey in some way. Or perhaps it is more than that: in giving it away she’s gained something more important in its place. Maybe that is what Sister Emily meant when she said: ‘When you no longer need them then you will be free.’
‘You shouldn’t have given in to him,’ Clem said. ‘I warned you about his arguing ability. You should have been firm. I can get it back for you.’
She shook her head. ‘I want him to have it. He loves it. Don’t worry, Clem.’
After all, she still has the Peter Rabbit mug and the shawl as reminders of her childhood and her mother: symbols to show that she has been loved. Perhaps, here at Chi-Meur, these symbols are less important – but how would it be if she had to leave? And where would she go? Janna opens her eyes and folds her arms around her knees, filled suddenly with a sense of panic and loss.
‘Mother Magda’s trying to find another group who could come here to Chi-Meur to make it more viable,’ Clem told her. ‘It’s a rather last-ditch effort. In the last year two Sisters have died and the novice who was here decided she would be more useful if she were to take Holy Orders. Losing three people in twelve months is a big deal in a small community. After all, Mr Brewster has merely hastened an inevitable process. Something has to be done. There might be another community somewhere, in the same position, that could join us here.’
Janna stands up and her long scarlet cotton skirt swishes around her slender ankles. She gathers the thick, wiry, lion-mane of her hair into a great bunch on top of her head, stretching her back and breathing in the heady scent of the bluebells. Suddenly a new sound is introduced into the silence: the sweet high note of the bell ringing for Vespers.
‘They’re thinking about it,’ says Mr Caine. ‘Not a good time to ring. I’ve told you before it’s best I call you. People about.’ He smiles at a few locals as he edges out of the pub and crosses the road to the sea wall. ‘Look, it’s no good swearing at me and Phil. We’re doing our best and they’re thinking about it … The dit is that they might get other nuns to join them. That’s the latest thing … No, it’s common gossip in the village. I don’t need to creep around, spying. I told you, they love these old dears. Nobody wants a hotel, I can tell you that … One of the old ducks was born round here and she’s still got rellies in the village … OK. Just warning you. Anyway, nothing to report … No, I’m stuck here now, aren’t I? Ear to the ground. Poor old Phil has been doing his stuff but he can’t put the frighteners on ’em. You just don’t get it, do you? They’re not like the poor little people you usually bully. These old girls have different values … Yeah, yeah, whatever, but you’re not here, are you? I’ll keep you up to speed.’
He snaps his mobile shut and slips it into his pocket. He nods to a couple of young men who lean on the sea wall, pints in their hands. They stare back at him.
‘I love you too, baby,’ he mutters, and goes back into the bar.
The thrush wakens her. The clear distinctive thrice-repeated phrases evoke other springs and half-forgotten emotions connected with youth and restlessness. She knows that it will be impossible to sleep again now and she turns carefully, so as not to waken Pa, and tries to see the little bedside clock: a quarter-past five. It is quite light and she slides quietly out of bed, pushing her feet into slippers, gathering up her dressing gown.
The dogs raise their heads, watching and waiting. Is this simply a bathroom break or something more? Mo opens the bedroom door and gestures them to follow her. They come at once, tails wagging, across the landing, down the stairs and into the kitchen. Mo closes the door, lest either of them is tempted to sneak back upstairs to look for Pa or Dossie, and pulls on her long dressing gown and ties its belt firmly. Then she lets them out through the boot-room and into the garden where the thrush is still singing.
She changes her slippers for gumboots and follows them, wandering over the dew-drenched grass, pausing to break off a spray of the sweet-scented yellow azalea as she waits for the sun to rise. A blackbird hops ahead of her, pausing to eavesdrop on a worm. The garden is full of rosy light; the clear pale sky streaked with crimson and scarlet. The thrush, perched high in an ash tree at the field’s edge, continues to sing; she can just see his pale speckled breast between the light green leaves.
Now, away in the east, the world’s rim flames and dazzles and suddenly the whole landscape burns into brilliance as the sun rides up clear of the earth. The garden is a magic place: trembling with a soft radiance; flashing with jewelled brightness; filled with the pure, unearthly sound of mounting notes and trills and cadences as other birds join the thrush to welcome the morning.
The dogs come back to her, pushing against her cheerfully, eyes bright, and she bends to stroke them.
‘Much too early for breakfast,’ she murmurs, ignoring John the Baptist’s hopeful gaze. He sits down and offers his paw. ‘Well,’ she relents, ‘perhaps a tiny biccie each while I have my tea.’
Back in the kitchen she leans against the Aga waiting for the kettle to boil, thinking about Dossie. Every instinct tells Mo that there is a new man in Dossie’s life: she can recognize the signs and she is anxious. At first it presented itself as a wonderful prospect – Dossie is so happy, almost effervescent – but now, with Adam asking questions about wills and their future plans, she can see complications. Just supposing Dossie has found the right man at last, and she suddenly decided to set up a new home with him – or move in with him – then Pa’s newest idea, that The Court should be left to Dossie, might not be such a good one after all. If Dossie doesn’t want to live at The Court then there is no good reason why it shouldn’t be left equally to her and Adam.
Mo spoons tea into the tea-holder and puts it into the large blue and white Whittard’s teapot. But just supposing the relationship doesn’t work out? After all, none of the previous attempts has been successful. Well, then: if she and Pa died Dossie could still use her share of the proceeds from the sale of The Court to buy a place of her own. And if one of them or both of them were still alive then she can simply come home again. But how terrible if, by then, The Court had already been sold and Dossie couldn’t come back to it; and, of course, it wouldn’t be there for Clem or Jakey if they should need it.
The kettle boils and Mo makes the tea, caught up again in the tangle and anxiety of her indecision. Pa is getting tired of these endless discussions. He wants to leave The Court to Dossie and all other disposable assets to Adam, and that is that. The trouble is, she doesn’t dare tell Pa that she believes that there is a new man in Dossie’s life. He would charge in at once, questioning her. If only she could tell what lay ahead then they could make this final important decision. Leaving The Court to Dossie only makes sense if things go on exactly as they are now.
John the Baptist’s tail begins to beat upon the floor; the door opens and Pa comes in.
‘So there you are,’ he says. ‘Woke up and wondered where you’d gone. It’s a bit early for you, isn’t it?’
‘It was the thrush,’ she says, reaching for a mug from the dresser so as to pour him some tea. ‘Its singing was just so beautiful and the sunrise was magical. I simply couldn’t stay in bed. And, anyway, we used to be up early with the B and B-ers, didn’t we? Six, at the latest.’
He sits down opposite, yawning, hair on end. ‘God, I miss it,’ he says. ‘All the coming and going. Kept us young, Mo.’
‘I don’t miss certain bits of it,’ says Mo more cautiously, ‘but I agree that it seems very quiet sometimes.’ She watches him compassionately: he is alert and fit. Only the tremor in his right
hand – a legacy from the stroke – betrays the fact that he is not as young as he looks. ‘We’ll invite a few of the old chums down again this summer. Dossie’ll fix it.’
‘I know she will.’ He picks up his mug, holding it with both hands, elbow on the table to give him security and disguise the shaking. ‘So what’s she up to, Mo?’
She starts, almost spilling her own tea, and he snorts derisively.
‘Did you think I hadn’t noticed? Dashing about like a demented chicken that’s just won the lottery. Never letting that damned mobile phone out of her reach. Always peering at it and checking it. Hurrying out when she gets a text. I’m not blind. It’s a man, I suppose.’
‘I hope so,’ says Mo drily. ‘It usually is.’
They look at each other anxiously.
‘Not very good timing,’ he observes, ‘in view of our new plans. Of course, it might be nothing.’
‘It’s never “nothing” with Dossie. She’s always so wholehearted when it comes to men,’ says Mo, resigned. ‘But there’s nothing we can do until she’s ready to tell us.’
‘We can ask her,’ Pa says. He brightens at the prospect. ‘Why not? It’s normal to take an interest in one’s child.’
‘She’s not a child,’ says Mo at once. ‘That’s just the point. Just because she lives with us doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t respect her privacy.’
‘But you worry about her,’ he says cunningly, ‘don’t you, my darling? Isn’t it best to make certain that she’s not doing anything foolish?’
Mo looks at him narrowly. ‘Don’t try to wheedle me. And don’t you dare to say a word to her.’
‘Oh, really!’ Pa rolls his eyes; sighs weightily. Suspecting ructions, John the Baptist struggles into a sitting position and watches him warily.
‘Look,’ Mo says, ‘I know we want to make the decision: get it all settled. I want it just as much as you do. It’s just that it’s a bit tricky leaving The Court to Dossie, only to find that she’s about to settle down somewhere else. After all, if we leave it to Dossie and her new man, why not to Adam and his new woman?’
The Christmas Angel Page 12
